Set in 2002, a year after the September 11 attacks, the story follows Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim American sophomore worn down by the stares, slurs, and occasional violence she faces because of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. Tired of being misjudged, she has built thick walls around herself, pouring her frustration into music and into breakdancing with her older brother, Navid, and his new crew. When she is partnered with Ocean James, a white junior and star of their basketball-obsessed school, a tentative friendship grows into a first love that neither of them expects. Their relationship draws hostility from a community unwilling to see past its assumptions, putting pressure on Ocean's standing and forcing Shirin to weigh how much of herself she is willing to risk. Drawing on the author's own experiences as a hijab-wearing teenager in post-9/11 America, the novel is a closely observed coming-of-age story about identity, prejudice, and the courage it takes to let someone in. Honest about anger and isolation as well as tenderness, it traces how two people from very different worlds try to understand each other against the backdrop of a country quick to judge.